


On The Sands Of Edom

by lawsofchaos



Category: Shadowhunters (TV), The Shadowhunter Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: Alec Lightwood Deserves Nice Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, I DO NOT WRITE MCD I PROMISE, M/M, No Characters Were (Permanently) Harmed in the Making of This Fic, Post-Break Up, even if it looks that way for a minute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24311710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lawsofchaos/pseuds/lawsofchaos
Summary: “Alec!” Magnus drops to his knees next to him, his eyes wide and his hands fumbling as he tries to staunch the blood flow, magic sparking uselessly over his skin in failed attempts at healing.And Alec hates hearing Magnus beg, hates hearing the tears in his former lover’s voice. He fixes his gaze on the man who only weeks ago he had dreamed he would marry.“I canhelp,” Magnus promises wetly.Alec forces a smile on his face, finally managing to still Magnus’ hands with his own. “You can’t.”OR, the one in which Alec thinks he's dying in Edom and asks Magnus to pretend to love him one last time.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 134
Kudos: 876





	On The Sands Of Edom

**OR THE BIG GIANT ANGST FEST**

When Asmodeus discorporates, there’s an inhuman shriek and a subsonic boom so intense Alec feels it in his bones before he hears it. It thunders through Edom, red-tinged sand gusting in narrow spirals around them. The dying wail of a tyrant king.

Magnus is free.

Alec collapses to the sand, sword dropping numbly from his hands and blood already frothing on his lips. He doesn’t need to look down to know the wound is fatal. Alec’s been a soldier his entire life- he knows he’s dying.

“Alec!” Magnus drops to his knees next to him, his eyes wide and his hands fumbling as he tries to staunch the flow of blood. Magic sparks uselessly over Alec's skin in failed attempts at healing. He knows Magnus is almost entirely drained after holding off his father as long as he did; Magnus has nothing left to heal him or to get them out of Edom.

“Magnus,” he gasps, grasping weakly for Magnus’ hand, the slippery blood making it difficult to get a firm grip as Magnus fights him to keep pressure on the wound. “Stop- just stop,” he pleads.

“Alec, no- I can-“

And Alec hates hearing Magnus beg, hates hearing the tears in his former lover’s voice. He fixes his gaze on the man who only weeks ago he had dreamed he would marry.

“I can _help,”_ Magnus promises wetly.

Alec forces a smile on his face, finally managing to still Magnus’ hands with his own. “You can’t.”

Magnus lets out a desperate noise and something twists in Alec’s chest, pain spiking as though the sword had impaled his heart and not his gut. “It’s okay, Magnus,” he murmurs softly. “It’s okay.”

There’s a final, distressed shower of sparks and Alec tightens his hold on Magnus’ hands with the waning strength he has left. “It’s okay,” he repeats.

Magnus doesn’t protest this time, closing his eyes in defeated acceptance. His chest shudders and he clutches Alec’s hands in anguish, not fighting him any longer.

Alec knows he doesn’t have much time left, a few minutes at the most before he loses consciousness. He takes in a hard breath, short and painful.

“Magnus,” he breathes. It takes every bit of air he has.

The warlock opens his eyes to look down at him, glamoured eyes rimmed in red.

Alec knows what he’s about to ask is selfish, knows what he’s about to ask is monumentally unfair, but he’s about to die on the sands of Edom, alone but for the man his heart belongs to in its entirety.

The man who has made it _abundantly_ clear his own heart no longer belongs to Alec in turn.

“Magnus-“ Alec has to stop to cough, clearing blood from his mouth before he can speak. “I know- I know you can’t- won’t- forgive what I did to you.”

Magnus opens his mouth, no doubt to respond, but Alec _cannot_ go through that conversation again. He can’t.

Every inhale is a struggle and cutting off Magnus before he can speak sends a bright spark of agony through his lungs, but it’s less choice than necessity.

Magnus had learned of Alec’s deal with Asmodeus just a few short days ago, and the ensuing - Alec can’t call it a conversation, a conversation implies two sides- the ensuing _row_ had left Alec clinging on to whatever scraps of dignity and sanity he had left by the very tips of his fingers.

Magnus never raised his voice - he wasn’t one to scream or shout - but he’d laid out piece by damning piece the many and myriad ways in which Alec had violated their relationship, had violated Magnus’ trust, had violated Magnus’ autonomy. He laid out every reason Alec was no longer worthy of holding a place in Magnus’ heart. And then he’d left.

Jace had shown up about forty minutes later - the exact time it takes to reach the little park in front of Magnus’ home from the Institute at a dead run - and Alec had still been standing, staring blankly into the distance, exactly where Magnus had left him.

“-Magnus,” he repeats, body spasming in the warlock’s hold as he coughs up another trickle of blood. “I know you don’t love me anymore,” and he has to break off again, out of breath.

“ _Alec_ ,” Magnus interjects, a single tear leaving a streaking trail through the dirt on his cheeks.

Alec doesn’t want him to speak though- not yet. “I _know_ \- you don’t need to tell me again. But-“ he wheezes for breath, throat closing, whether in grief or in pain Alec can no longer tell. “Would - would you - pretend?”

Alec can feel Magnus’ sharp inhale more than he can hear it, blood pulsing in his ears. He hurries to cut Magnus off, “Just- just for a few minutes, _please,_ ” he begs. “Let me die pretending you love me?”

“ _Alexander,”_ Magnus’ voice is more pained sob than any true vocalization and Alec feels heat well behind his eyes. He hasn’t heard Magnus say his full name since that awful, terrible night when he’d begged Alec to stay.

He thought he’d never hear Magnus say his name again.

He chokes on a grateful welling of tears as Magnus takes him in his arms and gently heaves Alec’s uncooperative body to rest across his lap and chest. Alec’s head lolls against Magnus' shoulder, the new angle helping him breathe in a sudden rush of air.

“Alexander, _darling_ ,” Magnus is near weeping now, “I never _stopped_ loving you- I _never -_ I _love_ you, darling, _I love you-_ “

Alec sobs in abject relief as he turns his head to the side, burying his face in Magnus’ neck. Magnus is letting him pretend.

“ _Thank you,_ ” he whispers into Magnus’ skin, pressing his nose into the crease where shoulder meets throat, nuzzling weakly. Magnus smells strongly of smoke and bitterly metallic blood, they both do, but even now there’s a faint scent of sandalwood underneath. It makes something deep in Alec’s ruined torso twist in warm memory.

Magnus is clutching him to his chest, arms too tight, grip too strong, angle pulling harshly at the gaping slash across his stomach.

Alec doesn’t care.

His vision is already darkening at the edges, but he pulls his gaze up to look at Magnus’ face one last time.

His lovely brown eyes are crying now, and Alec can see Magnus’ mouth moving, begging Alec to stay with him, promising him that he was just mad, just lashing out, and he loves Alec, he never stopped loving him - he’s not pretending, darling, he promises. Stay with him.

Alec smiles weakly and it’s so easy to pretend what Magnus is saying is true. He _wants_ to believe it so badly he almost doesn’t have to make himself imagine, but it’s getting harder for him to focus and his vision is dimming quickly.

He frowns.

It’s exhausting for Alec to gather enough breath to speak this time and Magnus doesn’t try to talk over him, staring frantically at Alec’s lips.

Alec almost doesn’t dare to ask him, but Alec doesn’t hurt anymore. He doesn’t feel _anything_ anymore, just a steady well of immeasurable gratitude for Magnus’ ~~lies~~ words, and he knows that's not good.

“-Magnus?” He chokes.

“Alexander,” Magnus sobs, wiping blood away from Alec’s lips with a singed sleeve.

“-Let,” he struggles for another breath. “Let me- see you?”

Alec can’t describe the wordless noise that Magnus makes at that request, but he squeezes his eyes shut obediently, tears leaking out underneath. When he opens them again, Alec’s breath hitches and his own eyes are impossibly hot.

It takes more strength than Alec thought he had left to bring up a single hand to Magnus’ cheek, stroking a thumb weakly under the golden cat eyes holding his gaze.

Alec’s hand drops, strength spent, and he does his best to ignore the streak of blood he’d left behind to mar Magnus’ beautiful face, staring only at the one sight he never thought he’d see again.

“I love you,” he murmurs and Magnus sobs, hold tightening enough that Alec can feel it even now.

His eyes are heavy, slipping shut without permission, but Alec just keeps staring up at the man he almost got to marry. “Thank you,” he breathes out, the last of his breath, “for pretending.”

His eyes close.

——————————————————————————

Alec never expected to wake up.

Alec never expected to wake up at all, and he certainly never expected to wake up and find himself in the Institute infirmary, Isabelle and Jace curled up in mismatched arm chairs Alec knows for certain don’t belong there.

Isabelle is wrapped up in one of Alec’s ratty black sweaters and he can see the tear stains trailing in mascara black streaks down her face. Jace is clutching his hip tightly enough to bruise even in his sleep and Alec’s heart pangs.

He closes his eyes in bitter memory as the last moments of his time in Edom come back to him.

He can’t make himself regret those final seconds.

He can't regret it, but it’s going to make his next Cabinet meeting even more painful than the last one, when Magnus had waltzed in with a cold gaze and a clipped greeting for “Mr. Lightwood,” as though they’d never so much as met in the past.

He breathes out, taking stock of his body.

He feels surprisingly good given the blows he took in Edom, but he also feels the comfortable haze that means the infirmary staff judged his wounds severe enough to dip into their carefully maintained stash of mundane medication. Getting up is likely to be painful.

He breathes in shallowly, quietly, not wanting to wake his siblings.

He braces himself to roll onto his side, the first step in getting enough leverage to sit.

Two more measured breaths and he rolls fully onto his left side, putting his back to Jace and Izzy.

He freezes, unable to suppress a shocked exhalation.

“Magnus,” he whispers, dazed.

The warlock had apparently been curled up next to Alec on the infirmary bed, their heads resting on the same pillow. Distantly Alec wonders how drugged he must be to have missed that and reconsiders his plan to get out of bed.

Alerted by his movement, Magnus is blinking open his eyes, his beautiful golden cat eyes, and Alec couldn’t move even if he still wanted to.

Magnus breathes in sharply, gaze suddenly clear and focused on Alec's own. “Alec,” he murmurs, mindful of the hushed quietude of the infirmary.

Alec doesn’t respond, he _can’t_ respond, and he doesn’t know why Magnus is here, why Magnus is _in his bed,_ but he doesn’t move for fear of Magnus suddenly dissipating as though he’s a fevered dream.

Alec is frozen in place, but Magnus raises a single arm, moving slowly, carefully, to cup Alec’s cheek and stroke his thumb under Alec’s eye, a bizarrely reversed mimic of the last thing Alec remembers from Edom.

Magnus’ eyes don’t move from Alec’s face, his thumb stroking Alec’s cheek in soothing repetition.

The two of them are silent for several long moments, curled together like two commas in the bed, Alec hardly daring to breathe.

When Magnus opens his mouth, Alec’s heart stops, waiting for the inevitable heartbreak, the inevitable renunciation of everything Magnus pretended when Alec was dying.

Magnus smiles sadly, obviously reading Alec’s expectation. His thumb stills on Alec's face.

“I love you, Alexander Lightwood,” he says simply. “I _never_ stopped loving you.”

**Author's Note:**

> To the lovely folks on the Malec Discord; thanks for the encouragement! (Aria, sorry dropping the angst, and _only_ the angst, in your inbox and running lol)
> 
> 🌻❤️❤️ Kudos make me happy, but comments make my day!! ❤️❤️🌻


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